OSSI? Open Source?

OSSI stands for the Open Source Seed Initiative.

It is a movement by farmers, gardeners, public-domain breeders, and other citizens who want to be able to save and share seed. Here is their explanation of the problem:

“Today, only a handful of companies account for most of the world’s commercial breeding and seed sales. Increasingly, patenting is used to enhance the power and control of these companies over the seeds and the farmers that feed the world.Patented seeds cannot be saved, replanted, or shared by farmers and gardeners. And because there is no research exemption for patented material, plant breeders at universities and small seed companies cannot use patented seed to create the new crop varieties that should be the foundation of a just and sustainable agriculture.Inspired by the free and open source software movement that has provided alternatives to proprietary software, OSSI was created to free the seed - to make sure that the genes in at least some seed can never be locked away from use by intellectual property rights like patents.Through our Pledge, OSSI asks breeders and stewards of crop varieties to pledge to make their seeds available without restrictions on use, and to ask recipients of those seeds to make the same commitment.”--OSSI

Bountiful Gardens is an OSSI Partner. We salute these open-source plant breeders who are willing to give up their chance at a monopoly in order to build a sustainable seed future. Our open-source varieties appear below.